“Happiness is never really so welcome as changelessness.”
-Graham Greene
I often get asked something like, “Why bother?” … because it’s unclear to most folks exactly what it is that I do.
It’s usually a sign of some confusion that I get asked such a thing, because the connection between the work I do … the actual service I provide … is often unclear, even to my clients … except for the results they get. It’s why they keep coming.
To be fair what is unclear is “HOW” what I do works, NOT the outcomes I produce.
The outcomes, the “WHAT” that clients want, are attained within the work we do together … that’s clear.
However, from my point of view the “HOW” is much more interesting than the “WHAT” … despite how obscure it can seem to the uninitiated.
Separating “THIS” and “THAT” … or,
Unraveling the “X/Y Paradigm”
In the simplest terms I am a “Change Artist.”
That is, I help individuals and organizations make changes they want or need to make … for whatever reasons they may have to do so.
To be more specific, I am a “Healer” … in the most traditional sense of that word.
For most people the word “Healer” is a mystery of sorts, carrying a ton of semantic baggage with it.
However according to Webster’s 1913 edition of the dictionary a Healer is:
“One who, or that which, heals1.”
I prefer this quote in describing a Healer myself:
“Healing is really just a common job, there are lots of healers. She was one, I was one. Doctors, therapists, nutritionists, acupuncturists, dentists, shamans, physical therapists, editors, divorce lawyers, plumbers; there are healers everywhere. I used words and emotion to help people heal. He, I was told, used something along with words and emotion. That’s what interested me, the something else.“
I too help people to heal with “something else“.
The “healing” I provide people with happens through facilitating change.
If we dig a bit deeper we would come to a more interesting tidbit about the nature of the work I do, and that is that I am actually promoting “changelessness” in the work I do with clients.
You see I’m Graham Greene on this one, that “changelessness” is more welcome by most people than happiness. BUT unlike Graham, I believe that perceiving and experiencing the extant changelessness at one’s core is what they actually seek … NOT the changelessness he refers to on the outside, i.e.: no change in the context of their lives, stability and consistency over all.
Folks are simply confused about this, and it’s what I believe leads to confusion in my work too.
I’m never confused about what I do, or for that matter, what I’m doing when I’m working with clients … I’m aiming at what is changeless in the individuals and organizations I work with, and making that manifest and extant in how they experience themselves.
Sometimes it’s also about how people in relationships experience what is changeless in their relations … but it’s always the same old, same old … or as my teacher, mentor and friend would tell me … “Joseph you’re a one trick pony.
The real trick is the paradox that to become changeless you must first change, and I am gifted at provoking change in people.
Healing Beyond Words …
What’s sometimes surprising to me is how the obviousnesss of what I do escapes folks, even those I’ve worked with for years sometimes.
Sure, they get the outcomes the come for … the the “HOW” seems elusive, or invisible, to them somehow.
What they miss most of all is that what they really get is healing … deep, profound, unspeakable healing.
This is understandable, how they miss the healing part of it … because it’s beyond words, and beyond the common paradigm. WHAT I do, and HOW I do it, are beyond how “it’s done” in the modern framework.
Heck, if I more openly called what I do “healing” or called myself a “Healer” most folks who don’t yet know me would be more likely to use the label “quack” … especially when I refer to healing relationships and organizations!
I’m guessing though that quite a few of the folks who do know me, when they read this, will get exactly what I’m talking about … and may even wonder why I don’t more often use these terms in referring to what I do or myself.
There is another part of the “trick” I do. My “trick” depends on helping my clients get to NOTHING before they get what they want.
This is where we separate the clients who will make and those that will go back to where they’ve always been … those who choose the red pill and those who choose the blue pill.
“Morpheus: This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.“
From: The Matrix (1999)
It’s about the choice between the path of seeking change or unveiling one’s changelessness and learning to remain constant in that.
It’s about the freedom to become who you are … fully, completely and wholely … and in that healing what ails you. In becoming changeless, even when the disease remains … the discomfort is relieved.
The idea of becoming changeless is far beyond “healing” as most people have been taught to think about it … it’s about leaving the Matrix behind.
Profound healing is NOT about getting better, or getting past or over what ails you, or learning how to cope with it either.
Profound healing is stepping into your life “as it is” without changing a thing … and in that finding the enchantment, wonder and awe present in this moment.
Then and only then, when you’ve stepped beyond the Matrix, delved into the deepest regions of your being, and begun to experience the essential nature of your changelessness, can you begin to re-emerge into the world proper and choose the life you will lead.
Maybe even more acurately than calling myself a “Change Artist” or “Healer” .. in the tradition of Tarkovsky I should call myself a “Stalker”2. This is very particular and peculiar skill … one I seem to have a proclivity and prodigious training for as well3.
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Princeton, NJ
- From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 ↩
- A guide who leads others into the “Zone” where their deepest desires are revealed, and their wishes granted. ↩
- My everlasting thanks to Roye Fraser. ↩
PS – Summer Intensive Training w/Dr. Joseph Riggio:
MythoSelf Behavioral Communication
Professional Certification Training
Presented by ABTI | Princeton and Acuity World, DK
SPECIAL ONE WEEK ONLY OFFER
(expires 19 June 2013)
Opps … I made a BIG MISTAKE …
My partner Henrik Wenoe, at Acuity World has been on my case for weeks (months really) to announce this training program to my list … but I’ve simply been swamped.
The Early-Bird pricing “officially” ended on 15 May 2013 … and here we are almost a month later and I haven’t even let folks know about this powerful program we’re running this summer.
So I’m taking the blame and doing what I can to make it up to you …
For the next week you can still get the Early-Bird pricing for either attending the event live in-person, or via Live Internet Simulcast (there’s even an option to pre-purchase just the videos) … when you register directly using this link:
MythoSelf Behavioral Communication – Summer Intensive
You’ll SAVE $3000 from the Regular Investment for this 12-day Intensive program when you attend it live (BTW the investment includes room and board with three meals a day, snacks and coffee/tea/water all day long).
If you want to attend via the Live Internet Simulcast … now broadcast in HD via my private LiveSteam MythoSelf Channel … or pre-purchase the HD video recordings, you’ll be able to take advantage of the Early-Bird pricing as well.
BUT … you must act immediately to get the Early-Bird Pricing (there’s also a three-payment plan I’ve set up for you as well if you want to spread out your payments over three months) …
Here’s the link you need to use to register and get the Early-Bird pricing:
MythoSelf Behavioral Communication – Summer Intensive
[NOTE: The full program brochure is here: http://www.acuityworld.com/pictures_da/med_clips/Joseph%20Riggio_2013.pdf]
